America 2023, as surrealistic as anything witnessed on the New Year’s Eve Twilight Zone marathon, morphed from Old Republic to Banana Republic.
Donald Trump began the year free of legal charges and down in the polls. He ended it facing 717.5 years in jail and leading in the polls for president of the United States. Does any better proof exist that Americans hate when their government tells them what to do?
Matt Gaetz showed the might of one resolute member saying no to the Republican majority, which had depicted itself as powerless to block the president’s spending agenda. Gaetz’s bête noire, Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker elected on the 15th ballot in January, retires from Congress before Ryan Seacrest hears “Auld Lang Syne” this weekend.
Palestinian terrorist groups — including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine but not the People’s Front of Judea or the Judean Popular People’s Front — launched a sneak attack against Israel on Oct. 7. Casualties included nearly 1,200 Israelis and the president of the University of Pennsylvania. The terrorists kidnapped old ladies, beheaded soldiers, and spat upon the paraded half-naked body of a 22-year-old pacifist attendee of a rave. Some Americans, particularly at elite universities, immediately blamed Jews — 2023, 1023: six of one, half dozen of the other.
The British dishonestly held a coronation for King Charles III even though he does not hold the powers associated with a monarch and the Chinese Communists dishonestly held an “election” for Xi Jinping though he holds powers associated with a monarch and not a People’s Leader. In 2023, euphemism remained king.
Woke went broke, or at least lost money, in 2023.
Silicon Valley Bank gave over $70 million to Black Lives Matter and BLM-related causes, employed Paul, Weiss to conduct an “equity audit,” and announced “Silicon Valley Bank Commits to $5 Billion in Sustainable Finance and Carbon Neutral Operations to Support a Healthier Planet.” Then the bank governed by a board of Democratic Party donors and activists and not bankers unsurprisingly collapsed in March.
Bud Light allowed people who don’t know people who drink Bud Light to run its promotions, which soon included a disturbed man masquerading as a woman pitching the product. If Bud Light had changed its name to Vomit Lager, it’s hard to imagine it collapsing more precipitously. It lost its crown as America’s bestselling beer to Modelo before the halfway point of the calendar. Soon it resides with Schlitz, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and other past top sellers at the ghetto end of the cooler.
Disney’s stock report admitted that “consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.” Box-office underperformers included Elemental, which features a nonbinary cartoon character, and a woke Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The corruption of purpose became so bad that South Park lampooned Kathleen Kennedy, head of Disney subsidiary Lucasfilm, as Cartman saying, “Put a chick in it and make her gay,” not just to scripts but restaurant orders and much else in non sequitur fashion.
Fatigue over recycled formulaic brands disguised as movies added to the woes. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania lost money for Disney and The Marvels became the lowest-grossing film of the 33 released in the Disney-acquired Marvel Cinematic Universe. The great summer success of Barbie and Oppenheimer showed that the unimaginative reliance upon sequels, reboots, and superhero movies met some resistance in 2023.
Taylor Swift, a sort of live-action Barbie, ascended in 2023 to that place in the stratosphere occupied by Elvis, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson. Her “Eras” tour grossed over a billion dollars, her movie that shrewdly bypassed Hollywood middlemen topped a quarter-billion dollars, and her Midnights album spawned three more Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers. Time named her person of the year and an un-NFL demographic of 14-year-old girls began watching football games in hopes of catching a glimpse of their hero cheering on her hero Travis Kelce.
Someday we learn if 2023 brought into the world a presence as electric as Tina Turner, a beauty the likes of Raquel Welch, an athlete to fill mighty Jim Brown’s cleats, a politician as noble, brilliant, and gentlemanly as James Buckley, a storyteller as captivating as Cormac McCarthy, and a songwriter able to carry “The Weight” of a Robbie Robertson. A safe bet wagers that Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman, remains sui generis.
History may see 2023, much the way it depicts the 1970s as a rest stop between the 1960s and 1980s, as a transition between the oppression imposed by COVI and the chaos wrought by the 2024 election. But some of us who lived it can say we loved it.